Rosé Wines have arrived! Respect the Pink.

Walk by any sidewalk cafe in Manhattan, Houston, San Francisco, Atlanta, or Milwaukee and count the glasses of pink wine on the tables. My friends, we are in the midst of a Rosé invasion and unlike most invasions — this one is great and delicious.

Three decades ago Rosé was a fringe category with anyone serious about wine occasionally waxing poetic about the great wines from Tavel (Rhone, France). Casual wine drinkers cheerfully consumed the Rosé Mateus, in its narrow-neck, flask-like bottle, or Lancers. Both brands are still sold but rarely seen in most markets. (I’ve lost the millennials with these old-school references but my contemporaries just got a chuckle.)

In the mid 80s we saw that rise of White Zinfandel. Sutter Home is to be credited, or blamed according to your point of view. Sutter Home made White Zin as a “mistake” in the 70s and then soon ruled the American wine world. Other brands follow, as is the wont in the industry, and there wasn’t a bar or restaurant in America that didn’t serve White Zinfandel in 1990.

There is no doubt that White Zin was the gateway wine for many rookie wine drinkers who would in short order deny ever drinking the stuff. “Serious” wine drinkers had moved on from White Zin by the middle 90s. Pink wines were passé and no wine aficionado, “or want-to-be wine aficionado,” would be caught dead in public with a glass of pink wine.

Then came the new millennium — perhaps it was a Y2K bug or just a coming of age but Rosé was starting to gain traction. By 2005 Rosé was in vogue. Each April to June the latest crop of Rosé would hit store shelves and by the time we settled into July much of it was gone. Wine lovers had not simply embraced Rosé, they devoured it.

You Can’t Buy Just One Bottle of Rosé

By 2010 nearly everyone was drinking the pink stuff. Importers of Provence Rosé, as well as other Euro appellations, were begging their trusted producers to make to make more Rosé while also looking for additional reliable brands to feed the growing demand.

The south of France, Provence in particular, was the inspirational home of fine Rosé. In California many producers who shunned Rosé in the post White Zin backlash were back making Rosé (if even just for themselves).

Today the pink stuff couldn’t be hotter and it has become a bit of a victim of its own success. Provence Rosé is now ubiquitous. The demand has out-paced the natural supply. Brands that were once reliable are now lighter in color with muted flavors as well. Further painful is that the once inexpensive patio-pounding Rosé has crept up to $20 and beyond in many cases. Unless you know the Rosé well and are willing to hand over $25 a bottle you are better served to explore labels sold at $20 and under. But do keep on the lookout for Rosé selling at $15 and under — don’t dismiss it as bargains are still there to be had. Also, there are some interesting Bag-in-Boc Rosé wines from Spain and Portugal that are very interesting and tremendous values. When a simple Rosé sells for the price of a non-vintage Champagne or TrentoDOC I look elsewhere.

Luckily, the wine making world has stepped up to fill the growing demand. Now you can find lovely Rosé from South America, Spain, and every region in Italy from Veneto to Sicily. Many of these wines are damn delicious and easy on the wallet.

From Spain we find fantastic Rosé being made in appellations from north to south and made from the nation’s most heralded red varietals like: Tempranillo, Garnacha (Grenache), and Mona stroll (Mourvèdre). These varieties frequently make delicious Rosé with bold flavors and bright, refreshing acidity.

In Italy the Rosé wines are as varied as red and whites from this viticulturally diverse land. In the North famous varietals like Barbera, Corvina, and Lagrein are utilized to craft wines with strong varietal character and ample acidity. In Central Italy Sangiovese proves it’s not just a world-class red wine producers while the region of Abruzzo offers a DOC dedicated to Rosé in the shape of Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo (see our story here) made exclusively with Montepulciano. In the South Puglia has a long tradition of crafted tasty Rosé wines made with Negroamaro and Malvasia Nera.

How Rosé is Made

Rosé wines are stylistically somewhere between red and white wines. Now you know that red wines are made with whole grapes steeped (winemakers call it maceration) for a period of time while white wines are made with juice pressed from the whole grape. As Rosé wines lie between red in white in color you would be right to think it’s a hybrid of these two types.

Broadly, there are three ways to make Rosé wines.

The first Rosé method is via limited maceration. Most Rosé  wines are made this way. You know that red wines get their color from direct contact with the grape skins. If you limit that time from days or weeks typical for red wines to a few hours or up to a couple of days — the extraction of color would be light or pink as opposed to deep red. The lightest Rosé wines are sometimes made with a direct press exactly like white wines getting color through the pressing process but spending no time at all on the skins.

The second Rosé method is known as saignée or bleeding. After a limited maceration, determined by the winemaker, a portion of wine is “bled” off to another tank to finish fermentation. In this method you are actually making two wines — a Rosé and a red wine that is concentrated by the removal of liquid/juice. Think of tea making — the tea is darker and more robust if the tea to water ratio is great and lighter if less tea is used. In this case, the grape pulps and skins are the tea.

The third Rosé method is blending — red + white = pink. This method is pretty much forbidden in Europe unless you’re making sparkling wines — then it is preferred.

There is undoubtedly a style of Rosé to fit your tastes from slightly sweet to bone dry. It can be pale pink and subtle to deep ruby red and bordering on red wine in both appearance and taste. Go out and get yourself some Rosé for the weekend. It’s the official, unofficial wine of summer.